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User blog:LeoIvanov/(OOC) Creating stories
58e28ee477bb70872c8b5030-1334-1001.png So now you know how to host an encounter and are confident that there is nothing that would phase you. You are overflowing with ambitions and ideas of conquering the world of HereWeStand on a narrative scale. What could POSSIBLY go wrong now? Why great ambition = / = great story Writing a story is like drawing a picture. When you begin the process, there's a whole unexplored world of things you can possibly do. Stakes, thrill, excitement, disappointment, plot twists, fun and sorrow await as you sit there with a brush, thinking of all the possible things you can draw. Just like with a painting, you have an empty canvas to slowly fill up with content, slowly making the picture rich and detailed the more strokes you make. When you write your own story from scratch, you create a self-contained universe in which all the events take place. A blank, empty page when starting a new file in Paint. Now, unfortunately, HereWeStand isn't like that. When you think of a story for an already established universe, think of drawing a picture in an already filled canvas. Somebody else already drawn (or is in the process of drawing) a picture on it before you. Before you even took a brush into your hand, somebody has worked hours upon hours on his piece of the art. If you imagine it like this, then it becomes a little less exciting than you originally imagined. Suddenly, there are limits to how much story you can create. You can't create something very exciting and big, like a giant earthquake, or alien invasion, because all of this will affect other stories that are currently ongoing. If you start drawing your own picture on top of someone else's work, you'll just be ruining it. So what exactly am I supposed to do?! First thing you must figure out for yourself is the boundaries in which your story may exist without ruining everyone else's stories. *Does your story take place in a place which nobody outside of said place can easily see or stumble upon, like the sewers, or an apartment room? Awesome! Keep it contained within, think INSIDE the box! *Do the things in your story affect anything on a global, or at least a large scale? Something that will be all over the news within the next few days? Then you are probably better off scaling it down to something much smaller, something that will either make small news, or will go by completely unnoticed. E.g: Plan to have a flood which the heroes of your story would have to deal with? Don't be in haste to throw the idea in a dumpster. Perhaps the sewer system was messed up and it lead to the water overflowing from the basement and into apartment rooms. Or perhaps you can even take your heroes on adventure on a boat out in the ocean and have it hit the Iceberg! Realize that something that's existed for as long as HereWeStand, there is bound to be places which have already been filled up. There is already a huge, global story going on. There isn't a place for another, conflicting global story. There isn't a place for a story that would take away the spotlight. However, there are a LOT of space for small, self-contained side-stories in the established universe! You may not be able to create a Mona-Lisa on top of the one already in progress, but you can help the current picture! The eyes are missing some shades? Color them in, make them the best and most detailed looking eyes! Equivalent of that is creating a story based on existing conflict. The best example of side story taking advantage of existing universe is "Outlawed ". That one took the concept of mutants being marked, and built a small story on that, hosted for a single character. Remember that it's not the scope and scale of your story that makes it great, it's how much you can do with as little space available to you. I hope this isn't too discouraging and only gets you more excited at the opportunity to tackle this obstacle. Have fun hosting! Category:Blog posts